"Never mind the fact that the iPod turned the entire music industry on its head. Never mind the fact that most successful notebooks today resemble designs first popularized by Apple. Never mind the fact that the blueprint of the modern day smartphone remains the original iPhone. Never mind the fact that competitors are scrambling wildly to copy the success and design of the iPad. Forget all of these things, because when it comes to Apple, the 'what have you done for me lately?' mentality reigns supreme."

For some bizarre reason, Apple is always being chastised for not introducing the "next big thing" at every event, as if innovative and disruptive products are simply formed out of thin air and should be delivered on a timely schedule, like opening day of Major League Baseball.

Im not necessarily saying it is fair, but from average pundits point of view the success of Apple is tied to being innovative and producing disruptive products - and it is, to a point... Therefore, that becomes the yardstick, i.e. when Apple tries to capitalize on the innovative and disruptive product they introduced by actually riding the wave they created, they are viewed as stagnating.

Is this _really_ stagnation? I think the real question that should be asked is how long they can ride a particular wave? I think this is where many industry analysts (including me in the past) get it wrong - Apple has figured out ways to extend such waves by selectively improving their products in unique ways - ways their competitors end up scrambling to match, thus extending the wave for quite a long time... Their ability to do this repeatedly is really uncanny.

Did anyone think, when they bought their original iPhone (which was an ok looking little soap shaped piece of plastic with a shitty screen) that the future success of the entire sector would hinge so strongly on build quality and materials? Apple did that... Is that innovation? Hell no, but it sure worked. Or high density displays? Or voice recognition? None of these kinds of things register as huge innovations, but they are enough to keep the entire industry busy trying to keep up.

I honestly thought the iPhone "wave" would have died like 2 or 3 years ago... But I honestly haven't seen any real, hard evidence of it dying even now... The iPhone 5 to my eyes seems pretty mediocre, but yet sales are still very high and still growing year over year.

My only point really is that Apple seems to (for the last 10 years or so) have a very good idea of how long they can ride such waves and when it is time to move on. And they are very good at moving on...

Look at how smoothly they went from classic iPod to the modern iterations. That used to be their bread and butter. They still make them, but they introduced new products to absorb their loses as the product wave wained. It is still a valuable product in many ways, but it is noise as far as their bottom line goes.

Anyway, rant over. I long ago gave up on critiquing Apple when it comes to product development. Love Apple or hate them, the reason the industry analysts keep getting it wrong is because they don't think like them... Apple will eventually f*ck up, but my guess (and most analysts) guess on when that will be is just about useless. Funny part to me is that when that happens all the "I told you sos" will start flying out of the mouths of idiots who have been wrong over and over and over again for the last 10 years...

I honestly thought the iPhone "wave" would have died like 2 or 3 years ago... But I honestly haven't seen any real, hard evidence of it dying even now... The iPhone 5 to my eyes seems pretty mediocre, but yet sales are still very high and still growing year over year.

You must live in the USA. The iPhone is pretty much in terminal decline everywhere else.